Executive producer Dan Harmon from Community and Rick and Morty. Photo / Getty Images
Executive producer Dan Harmon from Community and Rick and Morty. Photo / Getty Images
Dan Harmon, creator of hit TV shows Community and Rick and Morty, has admitted to sexually harassing a former writer.
Speaking on his Harmontown podcast, he addressed his behaviour toward Community writer Megan Ganz, weeks after she called him out on Twitter for sexual harassment.
Harmon said he had feelings for Ganz and abused his power when they weren't reciprocated.
He admitted: "I was attracted to a writer I had power over because I was a showrunner and I knew enough to know that these feelings were bad news."
"I did the cowardly, easiest, laziest thing you can do with feelings like that and didn't deal with them...I made everybody else deal with them, especially her. Flirty, creepy, everything other than overt enough to constitute betraying your live-in girlfriend."
He also admitted he repeatedly ignored Ganz when she told him on multiple occasions he was making her uncomfortable. He said his feelings led him to break up with his girlfriend and declare his love for Ganz, but when she rejected him again behaviour got even worse.
"I drank. I took pills. I crushed on her and resented her for not reciprocating it and the entire time I was the one writing her paychecks and in control of whether she stayed or went and whether she felt good about herself or not, and said horrible things. Just treated her cruelly, pointedly, things I would never, ever would have done if she had been male and if I had never had those feelings for her," Harmon said.
"On a fundamental level, I was thinking about [women] as different creatures. I was thinking about the ones that I liked as having some special role in my life and I did it all by not thinking about it."
Ganz has responded to Harmon via Twitter, ultimately accepting his apology.
She wrote: "He gives a full account… What I didn't expect was the relief I'd feel just hearing him say these things actually happened. I didn't dream it. I'm not crazy. Ironic that the only person who could give me that comfort is the one person I'd never ask."
